Caesar's Civil War (Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature)

240 Pages·2006·1.22 MB·English

by  William W. Batstone

Caesar’s
Civil War
Oxford Approaches to
ClassicalLiterature
series editors
Kathleen Coleman and Richard Rutherford
Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Elaine Fantham
Plato’s Symposium
Richard Hunter
Cae sar’s
Civil War
William W. Batstone
Cynthia Damon
1
2006
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Batstone, William Wendell.
Caesar’s Civil War / William W. Batstone and Cynthia Damon
p. cm. — (Oxford approaches to classical literature)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13 978-0-19-516510-4; 978-0-19-516511-1 (pbk.)
ISBN 0-19-516510-1; 0-19-516511-X (pbk.)
1. Caesar, Julius. De bello civili.
2. Rome—History—Civil War, 49–45 b.c.—
Literature and the war I. Damon, Cynthia, 1957–
II. Title. III. Series.
PA6238.B3B37 2006
937'.05—dc22 2006000597
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Editors’ Foreword
The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have seen a
massive expansion in courses dealing with ancient civilization
and, in particular, the culture and literature of the Greek and
Roman world. Never has there been such a flood of good transla-
tions available: Oxford’s own World Classics, the Penguin Classics,
the Hackett Library, and other series offer the English-speaking
reader access to the masterpieces of classical literature from Homer
to Augustine. The reader may, however, need more guidance in
the interpretation and understanding of these works than can usu-
ally be provided in the relatively short introduction that prefaces a
work in translation. There is a need for studies of individual works
that will provide a clear, lively, and reliable account based on the
most up-to-date scholarship without dwelling on minutiae that are
likely to distract or confuse the reader.
It is to meet this need that the present series has been devised.
The title Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature deliberately puts
the emphasis on the literary works themselves. The volumes in this
series will each be concerned with a single work (with the excep-
tion of cases where a “book” or larger collection of poems is treated
as one work). These are neither biographies nor accounts of liter-
ary movements or schools. Nor are they books devoted to the to-
tal oeuvre of one author: our first volumes consider Ovid’s Meta-
morphoses and Plato’s Symposium, not the works of Ovid or Plato as
a whole. This is, however, a question of emphasis, and not a strait-
jacket: biographical issues, literary and cultural background, and
related works by the same author are discussed where they are
obviously relevant. Authors have also been encouraged to consider
the influence and legacy of the works in question.
As the editors of this series, we intend these volumes to be ac-
cessible to the reader who is encountering the relevant work for
the first time; but we also intend that each volume should do more
than simply provide the basic facts, dates, and summaries that hand-
books generally supply. We would like these books to be essays in
criticism and interpretation that will do justice to the subtlety and
complexity of the works under discussion. With this in mind, we
have invited leading scholars to offer personal assessments and ap-
preciations of their chosen works, anchored within the mainstream
of classical scholarship. We have thought it particularly important
that our authors be allowed to set their own agendas and to speak
in their own voices rather than repeating the idées reçues of conven-
tional wisdom in neutral tones.
The title Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature has been cho-
sen simply because the series is published by Oxford University
Press, USA; it in no way implies a party line, either Oxonian or
any other. We believe that different approaches are suited to dif-
ferent texts, and we expect each volume to have its own distinc-
tive character. Advanced critical theory is neither compulsory nor
excluded: what matters is whether it can be made to illuminate the
text in question. The authors have been encouraged to avoid ob-
scurity and jargon, bearing in mind the needs of the general reader;
but, when important critical or narratological issues arise, they are
presented to the reader as lucidly as possible.
This series was originally conceived by Professor Charles Segal,
an inspiring scholar and teacher whose intellectual energy and range
of interests were matched by a corresponding humility and gener-
osity of spirit. Although he was involved in the commissioning of
vi | Editors’ Foreword
a number of volumes, he did not—alas—live to see any of them
published. The series is intended to convey something of the ex-
citement and pleasure to be derived from reading the extraordi-
narily rich and varied literature of Greco-Roman antiquity. We
hope that these volumes will form a worthy monument to a dedi-
cated classical scholar who was committed to enabling the ancient
texts to speak to the widest possible audience in the contemporary
world.
Kathleen Coleman, Harvard University
Richard Rutherford, Christ Church, Oxford
Editors’ Foreword | vii
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Acknowledgments
This book has two authors. Simple statement, complex reality:
Cynthia Damon wrote the initial drafts of chapters 1 and 4,
William Batstone the initial draft of chapter 2, each drafted some
parts of chapters 3 and 5, and the final draft was produced in com-
mon. We remain friends.
Will Batstone would like to thank the Department of Greek
and Latin at the Ohio State University for arranging a teaching
schedule that freed up one quarter for work on this book and
Ludwig Maximilians Universität in Munich for inviting him to
speak on Caesar in the spring of 2004. Although that paper was on
the manuscript tradition, the lively discussion over dinner encour-
aged his belief that the first book of Caesar’s Civil War was pub-
lished roughly as we have it.
For help along the way, Cynthia Damon is grateful to Caesarians
and historiographers who shared their own work with her and
commented on early drafts of hers: Elaine Fantham, Christina Kraus,
John Marincola, Debra Nousek, Andrew Riggsby, Andreola Rossi,
Geoffrey Sumi, and Tony Woodman. In their capacity as respon-
dents to public lectures, Christopher Pelling and Geoffrey Sumi
provided important challenges, as did the students in her class Bella